This invention relates to barn cleaners and more particularly to manure scrapers which operate in the alleys or central passageways of free stall cow barns to periodically scrape the manure from such alleys.
Barn cleaners of this general type are well known in the dairy farm art and the present invention is directed to eliminating certain deficiencies in conventional barn cleaners.
The manure scraper elements of conventional barn cleaners are generally upright blade elements which are power driven in opposite directions along the extent of the alley between the free stalls of the cow barn. These more or less vertical blades move against the feet of cows in the alley to substantially discommode the cows and there is a distinct possibility of the cow's lower leg portions being bruised or injured by the scraper blade. There is also the possibility of the cow's hoof being caught beneath the blade and despite the fact that the blade is connected to a traction chain the blade frequently does not engage the surface of the alley in intimate scraping contact.
Another objection to conventional barn cleaners which is avoided in one form of the present invention resides in the fact that conventional barn cleaners include traction chains for the scraper element which chains must travel in a groove or channel formed longitudinally and centrally through the concrete barn alley. In conventional barn cleaners this groove or channel is relied upon to maintain the scraper blade in proper transverse alignment as it passes along the alley.
It is very difficult to form such a groove or channel in the concrete alley in existing cow barn structures so that the installation of conventional barn cleaners in such existing structures is very much complicated and often ruled out on economic grounds.